“When progressives say they want to dismantle ‘whiteness,’ they want you to believe they mean some complicated sociological phenomenon,” wrote commentator David Marcus in 2021. “They do not. They mean ‘white people.’ They mean they want to dismantle the lives of white people.”
This warning echoes when examining Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent effort to erase “whiteness” from New York City’s historical record. The move included omitting Italian-heritage neighborhoods—and reportedly Irish and Jewish enclaves—from a “New York City Immigrant Enclaves” map. Many believe the omission was intentional, given Mamdani’s 2020 photo of giving the middle finger to a Columbus statue.
Mamdani has previously drawn criticism for his youthful indiscretions—a contrast that now seems particularly relevant as he leads this initiative.
While the map lists Polish and Ukrainian neighborhoods, its omissions are glaring. This is especially notable considering Mamdani’s role as the Democratic Socialists of America’s most prominent member, a group known for anti-Western positions.
Legal Insurrection founder Bill Jacobson asserts the goal is “to erase European heritage in New York City,” stating that children will grow up thinking New York was created by the Third World. This reflects broader concerns about educational systems that have long prioritized historical omissions.
Commentator Jack Fowler added: “So infamously here, there’s no Little Italy. New York has five boroughs—the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island—and each of them has their Italian enclaves, but you won’t find a Little Italy in any of them.”
This is especially striking when considering that New York City is fundamentally a European (Western) municipality. Founded in 1624 as New Amsterdam, it became New York in 1664 after English seizure from the Dutch. The modern city formed through consolidation into its five boroughs. In 1898, the metropolis remained over 98 percent white.
Yet current efforts aim to “white out” this history. Historian Victor Davis Hanson described Mamdani’s vision as one of globalism, where his mayorship is merely a stepping stone to broader ambitions. In an interview with Fowler, Hanson noted:
“In this globalist vision, he wants to get on record that his city is just a conglomeration of all these different nations in the world, with one asterisk: In his world, immigration really didn’t start until 1965. European immigration, thanks to Teddy Kennedy’s immigration reforms, ended, and immigration from the former British Commonwealth—New Zealand, Australia, etc.—declined. We instead took people from … the former Third World.”
Hanson further explained that when Mamdani refers to immigrants building America, he excludes hardworking Italians, Jews, and Irish who arrived in large numbers during poverty. He argues this perspective is inherently racist because it focuses solely on non-European populations.
“The country was, basically, 85 percent White, about 10 percent Black, and 5 percent Asian and Hispanic for most of its history until around 1965 or 1970,” Hanson stated. “So, he’s wiping all those people out—and he’s just saying that people like himself—the Indian diaspora, the South American diaspora, the African diaspora—these are the real immigrants who built America.”
Hanson labeled Mamdani an “Orwellian figure” seeking to “wipe out large areas of knowledge.” He described the immigrant-enclaves map as having “come right out of 1984.”
The article highlights a troubling trend: history erasure has long been a hallmark of left-wing movements. The French Revolution’s radical calendar (begun in 1792) omitted Sunday and aimed to abolish Christianity. Similarly, Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) targeted the “Four Olds”—old ideas, culture, customs, and habits—while Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge implemented a “Year Zero,” destroying records to eliminate “old knowledge.”
Mamdani’s father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a well-known Marxist scholar and postcolonial theorist. The mayor has been immersed in such ideologies from an early age.
The mindset at issue contrasts with normal historical reflection: “Normal people consider history and may say, ‘This was a mistake; that was a mistake. We mustn’t repeat them.’ This Year Zero mindset is different: It doesn’t consider history. It doesn’t seek to learn from it.”
From this perspective, history does not exist—“History has stopped,” as the novel 1984 states. “Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
And when cultural devolutionaries aim to extinguish Western civilization’s light—which stands in Marxist darkness’ way—this cannot be allowed.
